A Cross-Layer Scheme for Solving Hidden Device Problem in IEEE 802.15.4 Wireless Sensor Networks

The IEEE 802.15.4 standard is designed to achieve low-power transmissions in low-rate and short-distance wireless personal area networks (WPANs). For the sake of reducing the control overheads, the modified CSMA/CA protocol used by 802.15.4 does not have the hidden device protection mechanism, such as RTS/CTS mechanism. Previous studies indicated that the probability of any two devices in an infrastructure network unheard of each other is around 41%. Therefore, the hidden device problem (HDP) results in inefficient data transmission and serious power consumption issues in WPAN. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer detection and allocation (CL-DNA) scheme to solve the HDP in IEEE 802.15.4 without the cost of extra control overhead in data transmissions. The proposed scheme detects relationships of hidden devices based on the overlapped signals and then allocates the hidden devices into distinct subperiods for transmissions. Simulation results validated by mathematical analysis show that the proposed scheme significantly improves the goodput with the reduction in power consumption.